All the points are well taken, but has anyone considered that the 17th to be null and void if the individual State desires!Point is…it takes 2/3 of Congress, 2/3 of the States or 3/4 Legislature of the State to propose Amendments, I am sure you know that part. Take a close look at the very last sentence in Article 5 that deals with ratifying Amendments. “and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

That last sentence tells me… as an individual (State) I do not give a Damn what 2/3, 3/4 or even 99% of you what …I (State)am not giving up my equal suffrage in the Senate.

IMO… if the States wanted to reclaim their Representatives, it would be a matter of, We the People of that State, demanding this action from our elected State Representatives.

On another point....were in The Constitution, does it say that the Senator is to be appointed? "The Senator, is to be chosen by the State Legislature, as the House of Represenatives is to be chosen by the people of that State.

I downloaded "THE BALTIMORE PRINCIPLES by Carl Douglas" and it is only $4.00 on Amazon Kindle! I personally believe we need strong regional pressure on the Federal Government. The Senate, as originally formed by the Constitution before the 17th Amendment, was and still is the answer. Even though the Senator is in D.C. out of my immediate reach, his would be boss, the state legislature, is close enough for me touch. My state assemblywoman and my state Senator have both been in touch with me by correspondence. They are well aware that I have a local hardware store that sells good strong rope and that we have an abundance of tall trees (allegorically speaking) and that I will be after them if they stray. The senate needs to be under our states' control so as to keep the Feds under control. Get back to the original constitution.

Green_TZM wrote:What about continuing to allow the citizens to vote for their Senators, and removing the corruptive MONEY from public elections? Public Offices should not be for PRIVATE gain.

Money will never be removed from the process. There is no way to eliminate money without eliminating freedom of speech - SCOTUS has confirmed that principle. And I want the right myself to spend money on commercials for my favorite congressman (if I had one). So the best thing that can be done is to eliminate the need for the money. For the House of Reps, drastically shrinking the size of congressional districts also drastically reduces the need for money, as it eliminates the mass marketing expense of reaching many hundreds of thousands of voters. So lets extend this argument to the Senators, whose districts are the size of a state! Because some states are especially huge, it can take millions of dollars to win such an election, especially if a candidate is trying to unseat an incumbent, or overcome one of the dominant parties. So the best way to eliminate the need for Senators to prostrate themselves for donations is to have them appointed by the states' legislatures! Those legislators represent us (especially in states with smaller electoral districts) so I am comfortable letting them select the Senator from my state. In addition, the way our federal congress was supposed to work is that the Representatives represent the people, and the Senators represent the states. I agree with that concept, and I believe we should return to that.

I am also a big fan of repealing the 17th Amendment. That will go a long way towards fixing the Senate. Meanwhile, creating more seats will help fix the house because the smaller the seats are, the harder they are to gerrymander. I like both approaches...

Repeal is the only option. It is clean and neat. As for how Senators are selected, let each state decide that themselves. The whole point I believe is to push decision making to the local level and take power away from Washington. The problem with modifying or adding amendments is that you get special interest groups vying for options and in the end you get a 2700 page change that no one knows what is in it until you pass it. You reduce the possibility of getting it ratified.

But make it simple, just focus on repeal the amendment and let the states have control over how they make the decision to appoint or select Senators. This is a quick, is free standing, requires no extensive debates or compromises, eliminates modifications intended to kill the deal and give the states motivation through self interest that increases the probability of ratification.

There are many things we might want to improve. But the founding fathers created a system of checks and balances and three branches of government isn't all that made it work. Part of it was representation for the people. the main purpose of this site. Part of it was protection against an out of control administrative branch which the Senate before the 17th amendment made possible. The third part isn't that the Administration existed but that they did not have the power of direct taxation (that other pesky Wilsonian era amendment #16) without which the administration could not just print money and spend it without a budget. So there is a lot to be said for a convention of the states to repeal or remove barriers that have been added that are preventing us from getting the representation the founders intended.